The Council and the Dean

The confusion that resulted when the Council stated that the Dean's Office had violated their "gentlemen's agreement" yesterday underscores the necessity of getting important. Administration-Council relationships carefully clarified.

Dean Bender, in reaffirming the agreement, misconstrued his function under this arrangement, and the Council was equally misguided. The Dean says that he did not consider the extension of join instructing to freshman courses an important change in policy. But the function of the Dean's Office in these matters should not be judicial. Dean Bender should pass along to the Council any decision on educational policy without deciding on its weight, leaving it for the Council to pass on whether the matter is worth its consideration.

On the other hand, the second part of the Council's current quandary is its own fault. It claims that all these decisions should come to it for approval, but it apparently has been operating on an agreement--and a pretty vague one at that--which was made only with the Dean's Office. This agreement was made under an earlier administration, and Dean Bender--to say nothing of the Provost--cannot be severely taxed for no following a system that is badly in need of being redefined and brought up the date.

If students are to have any voice in educational policy, what is needed now is a definite agreement in block and white on how this process of consultation should work.